Slo-Mo Whoa: Mouse Tears Off Scorpion's Head in New Video

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A jaw-dropping new video shows a fuzzy little mouse as a fearsome
fighter, attacking and killing a venomous scorpion in slow
motion.

The
new mouse-scorpion video, released on
YouTube by Michigan State University, shows how the
hamster-sized southern grasshopper mouse (Onychomys
torridus) has evolved to withstand the painful stings of the
Arizona bark scorpion (Centruroides sculpturatus).
According to research conducted by Michigan State University
zoologist Ashlee Rowe, the mice actually transform the venom into
a painkiller.

"We don't want to try to sound too cute or anything, but it is
sort of like an evolutionary martial art, where the grasshopper
mice are turning the tables. They're using their opponents'
strength against them," Rowe said in October.

It works like this: Typically, the scorpion venom would activate
nociceptors, sensory cells that relay pain signals to the brain.
The cells relay these signals by opening and closing channels in
their cell membranes, particularly the sodium/potassium channel.
[ Slo-Mo
Video: Mouse Rips Off Scorpion's Head ]

Grasshopper mice have evolved a workaround, though. In their
cells, the scorpion toxin actually deactivates the
sodium/potassium channels responsible for carrying the pain
messsages to the brain. In that way, the mice don't feel the
toxin's pain.

"It's kind of like cutting a wire," Rowe told Live Science in
October. The mice are also resistant to the other toxins in the
venom, so suffer no ill effects from the stings.

This finding could be important, because if scientists can figure
out a way to artificially shut down that same channel in humans,
they might be able to develop a painkiller without side effects
such as drowsiness or addiction.

The new video, however, shows the amazing adaption during natural
encounters. A bark scorpion and a grasshopper mouse face off in a
tank set up to look like the animals' desert habitat. When the
mouse attacks, the scorpion attempts to defend itself with
multiple stings, which the predator brushes off with barely a
flinch.